The present invention relates to a shearing machine for bow-type continuous casting plants, for separating continuously cast strands, such as slabs or billets, which shearing machine comprises two cutters arranged in a carrying construction, a lower one of the cutters being movable towards and away from an upper cutter that is fixed in the carrying construction during the cutting procedure.
Shearing machines of this type, in bow-type continuous casting plants, are arranged on the run-out roller table following the straightening zone, and serve for separating the crop-ends of a cast strand and for dividing the cast strand into sections of predetermined lengths. Because of the fact that the lower cutter is moved towards the resting upper cutter during the cutting procedure, these shearing machines have the advantage that the rollers of the run-out roller table need not be lowered during the cutting procedure.
The totally solidified strand always leaves the straightening aggregate with its end curved up by an amount depending on the distance between the rollers arranged at the end of the straightening aggregate in the casting direction and due to a certain resilience of the strand end. As a result the position of the upper cutter in known shearing machines of the defined kind always has to be chosen in accordance with the height of the upward curvature of the strand end of the thickest strand castable in the plant. This is done in order to enable the curved-up end of the strand to pass between the upper and the lower cutters for the conveying out of the same. For this reason, a great distance will always be present between the cutting edge of the upper cutter and the upper surface of the strand. Consequently it is necessary before the cutting procedure as such, to lift the strand by means of the lower cutter until it touches the cutting edge of the upper cutter. This lifting performance has to be carried out, in addition to the cutting performance, by the devices moving the lower cutter, which proves to be detrimental in that the dimensioning of these means and the energy consumption of the shearing machine must be larger than would otherwise be necessary.